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Cowboy

The thing that puzzles me is that in Maui we did a lot of full court press. It was very effective and even when we didn't get a turnover it kinda threw off the opposing team's offense. Lately we have been pressuring the in-bounds pass and then picking them up in full court man-to-man. This is much less effective. We get less turnovers and are scoring at a much lower clip because our offense relies on scoring off of turnovers. West Virginia is killing people (us included) with that same strategy. Anyone know why we got away from that?

Sheriff

Nope, not from Oklahoma. It is by Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen, recorded by Frank Sinatra for a production of Thornton Wilder's Our Town. You are probably most familiar with it as the theme to Married With Children.https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_and_Marriage

Usually Last to Know

The thing that puzzles me is that in Maui we did a lot of full court press. It was very effective and even when we didn't get a turnover it kinda threw off the opposing team's offense. Lately we have been pressuring the in-bounds pass and then picking them up in full court man-to-man. This is much less effective. We get less turnovers and are scoring at a much lower clip because our offense relies on scoring off of turnovers. West Virginia is killing people (us included) with that same strategy. Anyone know why we got away from that?

Might have something to do with depth and fouling. Waters and Shine being out don't help. Evans has gotten two early fouls in the past three games, I believe. Add in the fouling machines (Solomon and Hammonds) and you don't leave Underwood as much to work with for the press. Not to mention Dillard hasn't been much help. I believe W.V. has a consistent 10 man rotation for their press.

Hold on while I make a chart

West Virginia's success, and their model system that Underwood is trying to instill here, can be best summarized by the advance metric called "Effective Possession Ratio". This is calculated by the formula: Effective Possession Ratio = [(Possessions + Offensive Rebounds – Turnovers) / Possessions]

At WVU, Bob Huggins (Underwood's mentor) perennially has the best OEPR and DEPR rankings in the nation. Likewise, Underwood ranked near the top in DEPR at SFA, although they didn't rank as well in OEPR. This season under Kyle Keller, SFA continues to excel in DEPR, but their OEPR is atrocious. However, OSU's DEPR and OEPR are both respectable (top 33 in the nation) this season. This means that we are are doing a good job at maximizing our opportunities to score on offense by limiting turnovers and maximizing offensive rebounds, while also minimizing our opponents' opportunities to score by getting steals and defensive rebounds.

This is a positive sign that Underwood is having success at instilling his defensive philosophy. There are still some kinks to work out (like our setting up our half-court defense after missed shots, reducing fouls, and slowing down the tempo when it favors us), but he was able to improve those areas over the course of his 3-year tenure at SFA, and I think he will do the same at OSU.

Hold on while I make a chart

Here's some more defensive efficiency stats. For the tl;dr people, just skip to the bottom. I gathered these stats from Team Rankings (https://www.teamrankings.com/ncb/).

I looked at HCBU's three years at SFA, our last three years under Ford, and this season. The point of including the SFA stats was to better understand Underwood's defensive philosophy and see what the stats look like when it is successful. It's also interesting to see how he changed a team over the course of three seasons.

First, we all recognize that Underwood plays a high-tempo style, which results in a lot of possessions but also a lot of points allowed. One of the drawbacks on more possessions is that there are more opportunities to foul. This is a primary (but not the only) reason that we are committing more fouls this season.

As you can see, we're actually playing at a significantly faster pace than Underwood's SFA teams. Unfortunately, we're allowing more points per possession than his SFA teams did.

While SFA's Defensive Efficiency (i.e., Points Per Possession) was very good last year, their opponent's field goal percentage wasn't very good. Likewise, our defensive FG% this season is not good either.

However, unlike us this season, they did do a pretty good job at defending 3-pt shots.

Putting these together yields effective FG%. As you can see, Travis Ford's team actually defended shots more effectively than any of Underwood's teams.

However, that's obviously only part of the story. Underwood's teams -- including OSU this season -- is excellent at rebounding and getting steals. These make up for poor shot defense.

tl;dr -- Underwood's team's play a high-tempo style that results in a lot of possessions and points allowed. They also play a risky style that hedges on offensive rebounding and steals. When we don't get offensive rebounds or steals, it leads to easy buckets for the opponent -- hence a high opponent FG%.

Cowboy

Here's some more defensive efficiency stats. For the tl;dr people, just skip to the bottom. I gathered these stats from Team Rankings (https://www.teamrankings.com/ncb/).

I looked at HCBU's three years at SFA, our last three years under Ford, and this season. The point of including the SFA stats was to better understand Underwood's defensive philosophy and see what the stats look like when it is successful. It's also interesting to see how he changed a team over the course of three seasons.

First, we all recognize that Underwood plays a high-tempo style, which results in a lot of possessions but also a lot of points allowed. One of the drawbacks on more possessions is that there are more opportunities to foul. This is a primary (but not the only) reason that we are committing more fouls this season.

As you can see, we're actually playing at a significantly faster pace than Underwood's SFA teams. Unfortunately, we're allowing more points per possession than his SFA teams did.

While SFA's Defensive Efficiency (i.e., Points Per Possession) was very good last year, their opponent's field goal percentage wasn't very good. Likewise, our defensive FG% this season is not good either.

However, unlike us this season, they did do a pretty good job at defending 3-pt shots.

Putting these together yields effective FG%. As you can see, Travis Ford's team actually defended shots more effectively than any of Underwood's teams.

However, that's obviously only part of the story. Underwood's teams -- including OSU this season -- is excellent at rebounding and getting steals. These make up for poor shot defense.

tl;dr -- Underwood's team's play a high-tempo style that results in a lot of possessions and points allowed. They also play a risky style that hedges on offensive rebounding and steals. When we don't get offensive rebounds or steals, it leads to easy buckets for the opponent -- hence a high opponent FG%.

Images weren't working for me, but that could be an operator error on my part...

The more I think about it (which goes against my initial post) I am all in on the style of D, and I know what it looks like when it is being run to perfection or close to it. Definitely all in on it the more I see of it. The team will continue to get better and better as we move deeper into this season and then beyond as Underwood brings in his guys who don't have the Ford habits to break. Overall, they have adopted the defensive style/philosophy/energy quicker than I expected them too. As they refine things, I'm sure the overall D will likely get better while steals and rebounding continue to be strong.

On that note, thank the sweet baby Jesus we have a team that is crashing the boards again. The rebounding numbers under Ford were terrible, so so terrible.

Federal Marshal

We simply don't have deity with Shine and Waters hurt. Add to that McGriff has been hurt in Big 12 play. He's been about 50%. Now he's finally healthy. We can't press much with all that. Add to that Evans getting into foul trouble and there you go. Hammonds needs to play harder!! Shoulda got that loose ball.

Cowboy

Turnovers - It seems like half of our turnovers were unforced, ie dribbling off a leg, bad pass, etc. Also, are our guards really that lost when getting double teamed? Not that it is all on them considering their teammates didn't move to help them out, but good grief. If I was an opposing coach, i would make sure to have lots of double teams headed our way until we prove we can beat the pressure they cause. Side note, could we have started this game much worse??

Defense - My god. How many times did ISU beat their man driving to the basket? How many times was Hammonds out of position? While he was in for Solomon for the stretch where he was beat on D, bricked a wide open 3, and then was burned on the next two defensive possessions is where the game went bye-bye for us. What happened to our swarming full court pressure? I know that Waters and Shine are out but we do have at minimum the bodies (Dillard, Dizzy) to help offset that loss. I know that in conference the teams are stronger than non-con, but damn, are we THAT bad at defending?

Offense - I saw someone posted in the game thread, if we didn't shoot 67% in the first half we would have been down by 20. Too true. And once our shooting fell off a bit, no surprise we we fell off a cliff. Still way too much of guys standing around while one person dribbles. I'm not sure if that is hangover from Ford or what, but it is painful to watch. I did see some signs of life with the bigs, specifically Solomon, attacking with the ball. While they are still not very good at that, anything will help as we continue to look stagnant at times. Hammonds is killing me here too. There were multiple times last night that when he (and a few others) had the ball out on the arch, there was a man wide open under the basket and they didn't get seen until the D had recovered. I don't recall if plays were being run to facilitate that person being open, but it is something they should be looking for and sad that they aren't/don't.

Other items - Where was N'Guessan? Anyone know why he didn't play? Evans didn't have a great night again. Is it lingering injury issues, teams focusing on him b/c the rest of our guys aren't nearly as good, or just wearing down b/c he has to do too much? I don't know. I was pretty pleased with Solomon outside of a couple of the fouls. He had better positioning and kept his wits on the pick and rolls than in previous games. I still don't know that he is a D1 starter, but he is certainly playing better. I like McGriff and I would love to see him get more of Hammonds minutes very soon. Definitely more things to grumble about but I think I will stop. I hope that the coaches keep working hard and the team continues to absorb the lessons that are put forth. Got a tough game Saturday coming up and beyond that, the Big 12 is not going to be easy.

Cowboy

I think this season should be considered similar to Gundy's first season. For different reasons, both guys are using a lot of players who don't really fit the style of ball they want to play. Like Gundy, I expect to see a gradual improvement year to year from Underwood's teams as he continues to bring in tough-minded, athletic players.

Just watch Jeffrey Carroll if you need a reason to be optimistic about the future. He's gone from one of the softest players on the team to a guy who looks to attack the basket and initiate contact. (And he might be our best rebounder...) In a couple years, I believe we're going to have a bunch of guys who play like Carroll.

Wrangler

I had the good fortune of getting tickets for both West Virginia and Iowa State. Those are both good teams dominated by seniors, but if you are going to compete in the Big 12 you might as well man up because every game with possible exception of OU and maybe TCU, will be hard.

Hammonds is a waste of a body on the floor. He is terrible on both ends. He has no confidence in his shot; has no concept of proper angles on defense (a must with someone with slow feet); and, quite frankly takes plays off too many times. I would like to see him on the bench, but current depth issues will not let that happen. I suspect Underwood does not want to throw him under the bus because he is a senior.

None of our players can stop the penetration dribble. That is a big problem in Underwood's type of defense because we pressure all over the floor and it leaves lanes open constantly. Learning proper defensive angles is difficult when never exposed to that concept before. Some of our young players have good enough feet to ultimately learn, but many of the older players (like Hammonds and Solomon) will never improve significantly. Solomon seems like a good kid who tries, but he is glacier slow and just cannot get it done. His fumble of the pass last night in front of the rim on a perfect feed from Evans was a big turning point in the second half.

Evans is facing pressure from 2 and 3 players which is not going to stop. The game film from this game and the WVU game is a blueprint for all teams to employ. Big physical guards are terrorizing him. He is quick enough to learn, but he will no longer get away with pure athleticism. He might as well learn now, because the NBA is dominated by such guards. His stock will likely drop and that could be good or bad news. Certainly good news in that he will eventually get stronger and learn from this. The bad news (although only relatively bad news) is that Trae Young is clearly still interested, but has made it clear he is evaluating who is coming back for the teams in contention. All in all, I would like Evans to return as I think he will continue to improve with experience and Young is most likely one and done anyway.

The press we saw early in the season depends upon depth. With Shine and Waters out it is a difficult task. Dzaigwa (sic) is not quick enough to replace those two, although Waters does struggle with quickness too. He is very savvy though for his age and can make up for some of his slowness.

I love McGriff. He makes errors at times on both ends, but he is learning. He really hustles and rarely takes plays off. His attitude is going to be nasty, something a lot of our players are missing.

Carroll is vastly improved, but has real defensive issues. He lost his man on the baseline at least 10 times last night resulting in straight line drives to the basket.

Forte is simply what he is, an undersized 2 guard who cannot create his own shot. He was patient last night and cannot be cited in that game for contributing to the loss. His shot is coming back and he will help, but he was forced on the defensive end to guard Burton last night at times, an almost impossible task.

This year will continue to be a struggle. The crowds will continue to be small as the losses mount. On the brighter side, the guards we signed for next year are now both nominated for the McDonalds All American and are 4-stars in the top 100 of most rankings. The transfer from St, Johns appears to have a big body. Underwood knows the honeymoon will quickly be over (if not already) and I suspect more and more minutes will go the young players. As hard as it is to be patient, there is no choice. No amount of talking effort will change the circumstance we face this year.

Deputy

According to Dave & John, Waters has been out with a concussion. He was cleared to play earlier this week, but he took a shot to the chin during practice. He woke up with a headache the next morning and now he's back in concussion protocol. I haven't heard anything new on Shine.